Sharjah: A Pakistani expat in Sharjah says she is struggling to make ends meet after losing her job last year, and now her home in a fire.
Victoria Diamond, 35, used to live with her mother in a two-bedroom flat which caught fire last month. Diamond said the cause of the fire is believed to be a short-circuit. They are now temporarily staying at a friend’s place in Sharjah.
‘We lost everything’
Diamond, who used to work as a delegate sales executive, said they “lost everything” in the fire on January 2, escaping with just their Emirates ID and passport. Diamond had lost her job, which paid around Dh6,000 a month, in January 2020 and said she has not been able to land another job since then.
In the fire, Diamond said she also lost one of her two cats, while her pet dog survived. She added that the family, from Islamabad, has been facing hardships since the death of her brother in 2017 and her father in 2019.
‘I need a job’
“I need a job obviously to stay here. I need to put a roof over our heads. I wouldn’t go around asking people to help me financially. All my life I’ve been here, I was born here, my father was also born and raised here. I’ve hardly been to Pakistan,” said Diamond.
“We cannot stay at my friend’s place forever and my mom, who is 55-plus and works, has her salary cut by almost 50 per cent. The two of us have been going through a lot of emotional and financial hardship in recent years and to top it all up, this fire happened. We lost everything.”
Diamond said her family had been staying in the flat that caught fire for 37 years.